The Legendary West Indies batsman, Brian Lara, has coined the ‘Big Three’s’ influence as an extremely worrying sign for Test cricket and has also urged Test Cricket to be played more between teams like South Africa, Pakistan, West Indies and New Zealand.
Lara raised his concerns during the ongoing Test match between Australia and West Indies. He believes that it is the need of the hour to save the most prestigious format of the game.
Australia, India and England are currently known as the ‘Big Three’ in international cricket and currently hold the power in terms of scheduling of matches, including which side they want to play.
The former West Indies captain expressed his thoughts on the balanced prosperity the game, “We just have to find some sort of middle ground where all cricket prospers not just English cricket, Australian cricket or Indian cricket.”
“When I looked at the South African team there was not one name that I knew. It is a very compact schedule, trying to force all three forms of the game in.” he further stated.
Lara’s comments referred to South Africa’s Test squad, which includes seven uncapped players including their captain, for their tour of New Zealand. Proteas mainstay players have opted to play in the ILT20 instead of representing the country in the Test format.
He further emphasized that for Test cricket to survive the international cricket fraternity will need to shift their focus to teams like Pakistan, West and South Africa, as these nations are struggling and losing interest,
As someone who has played Test cricket, the love I have for the game, it is something I don’t want to see die
The iconic batter, talked about polarization in cricket and pointed out that certain cricket teams like Australia, India and England were getting a lot games and international exposure, whereas other teams are struggling to get more than 5 test matches due to packed schedule.
The legendary batter is regarded as one of the best batters in the history of the game, havin scored 11,953 runs in 131 Test matches at an average of 52.88 and is the only man on the planet to score 400 runs in a single Test innings.
